Back here again

The vaccination teams (Astra Zeneca and Pfizer) have a briefing each morning before the shift starts and a joint 'huddle' each evening to feed back about the day. I've been doing afternoons so I've been to huddles but I haven't been to briefings. But I was here at 8 this morning so I heard the senior nurse bringing us up to date with the latest news and with practice and policy changes, mostly in response to the Delta variant. 

This morning the doctor who was on duty 12 days ago when I also witnessed a very unusual reaction to a vaccination briefed us on his follow-up to that person's hospital admission. He didn't need to follow them up but he did because clearly he cared. He also cared enough about us to tell us. From years of working with people in difficulty I have got used to the discomfort of not hearing 'what happened next' but it always leaves a sense of unease so I thanked him. 

I am sorry that because the shift patterns mean that it's never the same 40 or so people on duty together some people who were there that evening will not have heard but I will pass the news on when I can. As a volunteer I am doing only six-hour shifts when I choose to do them. The NHS staff are doing 12-hour shifts, four days on and four days off (I worked that out - it's the equivalent of a 42-hour week). The senior nurse I spoke to this morning was on her fifth consecutive day because of staff shortages. I hear some European accents among the NHS staff but only from people whose partners are British and whose children are at school here. It seems that those who did not have deeper ties to the UK have left for more hospitable countries. I have not yet met one British-born NHS worker who was living elsewhere in the EU but who has returned here post-Brexit. I keel over with admiration for these dedicated NHS staff but it seems they are not able to treat self-inflicted foot wounds.

Remind me, was that an extra £350m a week for the NHS?